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1918
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Not long ago, I read John Toland's book about the last year of WW1, "No Man's Land". That's really good stuff, and if you are interested in the history of WW1, I highly recommend it.
As ever, the public always seems to have a simplistic view of events, be they contemporary or historic. As in WW1, we tend to hold the view, "The Germans did this, then the Allies did that. Then the Germans did something else, then the Allies did another thing." This is too simple of a way to look upon these events.
In all these events, there is a political backdrop of some kind. In reading Toland's book, he lays out the background of events, exposing that to-and-for of politics on every side. In the Allied camp of 1918, every government had their own interest to represent and often they were in disagreement as to which course to take. Then within each country in the Allied alliance, there were different constituencies who often had opposing views that influenced the government in some way. On the side of the Central Powers, it was the same story. The countries were not necessarily all united in their aims, and within these countries, there were competing factions as to what was felt to be the "best" policy of the moment.
The real joker in the deck in 1918 was Russia. Revolution and the collapse of the Russian war effort lead to a chaotic situation that is hard to imagine today. That is unless of course, you are unaware of the chaos that reigns in Russia today; then is doesn't seem so unique.
"Sehr schwer, mein Herr"
yockey5
Catman Jack
Posts: 19001
(5/20/07 6:34 am)
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Re: 1918
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Seems to me that Russia has always been the "joker" in the deck.
Geboren om oude geweren te kopen
Last Will and Testament:
Being of sound mind, I spent all my money
MasterCork
Corkster
Posts: 1313
(5/22/07 6:48 pm)
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Re: 1918
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Toland's book on Hilter I found to be very good. I need to read this one.
Cork
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Rome fell because it had a Senate-what will become of us with both a Senate and a House-Will Rogers
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